


The Morning of Madness

by entanglednow



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Comes Back Wrong, Gen, Humor, Tentacles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-12
Updated: 2013-02-12
Packaged: 2017-11-29 01:21:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/681082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/entanglednow/pseuds/entanglednow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Oh, you are home then. How was your thing, your thing in Dunwich?" John says absently, trying to put his keys in his pocket without dropping everything.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Morning of Madness

John gets back to the flat later than he'd planned. Shopping after work isn't his favourite thing to do, people can be vicious after dark. But he'd like a whole day off tomorrow without anything pressing for his attention. He's not entirely happy to find out that there's a damp sort of smell to the place. Not a 'body parts left lying around,' sort of damp, or 'forgotten experiment in the kitchen,' sort of damp. It's a strange, watery sort of damp that suggests the radiators have been leaking on the carpet, and he's going to have to grovel around on the floor with towels again. Then he'll have to fling open all the windows to air it out. Leaving the place cold all night.

He's half way into the living room, still grumbling about how on earth he's going to dry the towels, when he registers the fact that Sherlock is sitting in his chair. He can just see his hair, and the familiar slope of his nose, by the moonlight coming in through the gap in the curtains. The fact that he's sitting alone in the dark isn't all that strange. Getting up to turn the lights on probably takes away valuable time from thinking about things.

"Oh, you are home then. How was your thing, your thing in Dunwich?" John says absently, trying to put his keys in his pocket without dropping everything.

"More complicated than I anticipated." Sherlock's fingers don't move out of their steepled position, but the light flicks on anyway.

The shopping falls out of John's suddenly nerveless fingers.

He's pretty sure he crushes it all on the way down.

-

When he comes to he's half slumped on the sofa, staring at a combination of Sherlock's upside down face, a big chunk of sofa cushion - and the swaying curl of a glistening appendage that doesn't belong on anything upright, that doesn't belong anywhere, really.

"Oh dear God," he manages.

Sherlock offers him a cup of tea, which is steaming and in his favourite mug, and looking altogether horribly normal compared to everything else that's happening. John levers himself upright and tries to take it, though he sloshes its heat across the back of his hand, because he can't look away from - well he can't look away.

"So, the cult of the dark gods," John says slowly, trying not to sound like he might start screaming hysterically at any moment. "Not actually a group of deluded morons then?"

"Unfortunately not," Sherlock says, sounding only slightly peeved at the fact that he's now sporting six, eight, no, ten new limbs. "I did manage to stop them from summoning netherworld horrors from beyond the dawn of time though. So it wasn't an entirely wasted trip."

"Oh well, that's alright then," John snaps, with a shaky sort of horror. "As long as the netherworld horrors don't pop up everything's fabulous."

"You've had a shock, it's understandable that you're going to have trouble with this."

"Had a shock. _Had a shock_. You're lucky I don't punch you in the face." John's shaking, horribly and obviously, he'd be lucky if he could hit Sherlock in the face right now.

"Best not to," Sherlock says with a frown. "They're not entirely under conscious control. It's fascinating actually. They're attached to my spinal cord via a new and rather complex assortment of nerves and blood vessels, quite impossible to remove."

"Of course they are," John says. "Of bloody course they are."

He drinks the tea anyway. Sherlock so rarely bothers to make him one. 

-

The tentacles are still there the next day. John had half convinced himself the whole thing was a dream. He's annoyed to discover that it wasn't.

"I need your help." Sherlock sounds as if he's been thinking about how best to phrase the question for a while, and has finally given up and just asked.

John doesn't look up over the paper he's reading.

"Not if it has anything to do with your...tentacles."

There's a disappointed slithering sort of noise, and the thump of a body hitting a chair.

"It's very difficult to perform these sorts of experiments on my own." 

John tries to make the paper rustle in a determined sort of way.

"Sherlock, there are lengths I will go to for our friendship, granted they're greater lengths than good sense usually dictates, further than I would go for anyone else. But I didn't sign up for tentacles."

"I feel compelled to point out that I didn't exactly sign up for tentacles either," Sherlock says tartly.

"You should have thought of that before you went poking around in not-entirely-as-mythical-as-you-thought, cults, shouldn't you. Why don't you ask Mycroft?"

"I already thought of that, after it became obvious how uncomfortable you were around them."

John's actually surprised enough to lower the paper completely. He'd thrown that out as a joke really, he hadn't thought anything could push Sherlock into actually physically asking Mycroft for help. 

He crumples the paper and lets it fall, because this is serious, he thinks. Sherlock's sprawled out in his favourite chair, wearing his dressing gown and pyjama trousers. His...tentacles are trailing around his feet, occasionally lashing at bits of paper like angry cat tails. John still feels sort of uncomfortable looking at them, as if he can't quite convince himself that they're not an optical illusion, or a special effect. He clears his throat.

"And how did that go?"

"Two of them tried to strangle him," Sherlock admits. "Which was something of an interesting reaction, but not really what I was going for." The silvery green limbs curl and then flick, in what John is horrified to discover he's starting to connect with Sherlock's amusement.

He sighs.

"Will I have to touch them?" He has a sinking feeling that the answer will be yes.

"Unfortunately, yes," Sherlock confirms, because he usually knows what John's thinking before he bothers to think it. "I need to find a way to conceal them so I can return to my work."

John has to think about that for a minute.

"You like being a talking point," he says absently. "First person in history with tentacles. I would have thought you'd rather like that."

Sherlock frowns at him, and John gets the impression he's an idiot for not knowing why he's wrong about that.

"John, I suspect that looking like the bastard son of some sort of Eldritch Abomination might be something slightly more than a _talking point_."

Sherlock's pacing now, tapping his chin and ignoring whatever John might say to that. Something slithers over John's shoe, and he finds himself toeing it away with a little noise of distress before he can stop himself.

"I did think about wrapping them around my torso, but none of my shirts will fit," Sherlock complains.

"I could go out for you, if you want," John offers. "I have a day off today. An actual one, one not caused by you for a change."

"I've made a list." Sherlock digs into his dressing gown and holds his hand out.

"Of course you did," John says with a sigh and takes it. It unfolds in his grip, a long, frenzied scribble of biro all the way down the page.

"I feel like I should question the fact that you're taking this extraordinary well. But I'm slightly afraid of the conversation that will result. So I'm just going to put my coat on and try not to think about this for a few hours."

He pulls his coat off the hook, collects his keys and wallet, and trudges down the stairs

"Bring back Chinese," Sherlock calls down.

John pauses with his hand on the door.

"Unbelievable."

**Author's Note:**

> And there is a sequel to this...
> 
> [Return To Dunwich](http://archiveofourown.org/chapters/3271817)


End file.
